The dynamic impact assessment of clean energy and green innovation in realizing environmental sustainability of G‐20

Abstract

Abstract In the context of the growth and development process, stability in environmental quality has remained a challenging issue to sustainable development, as several environmental problems, such as climate conditions, anthropogenic global warming, deforestation, and escalating degradation of water and air quality, depict a rising trend. In the contemporary materialistic paradigm, attaining a high economic growth rate while ensuring sustainable consumption of natural resources is impossible. The world needs to attain an economic growth rate that confirms sustainability in natural resource consumption and exploitation of resources introduced severe alert about the sustainability of such trajectory progress as an increase in economic growth upsurges natural reserve usage and energy demand, which leads to environmental deprivation. Both theoretical and empirical literature support that green or clean energy sources could significantly sustain environmental quality and foster economic growth. The recent literature assessed the role of green technology in promoting environmental sustainability. It emphasizes that green innovations are the most competent method to carry the competent use of resources, thereby reducing environmental degradation. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to analyze the impact of economic growth, clean energy, technological innovations, natural resources depletion, and green and sustainable technology on the environmental degradation of G‐20 nations in the frame spanning from 1992 to 2018. The results of cross‐sectional‐autoregressive‐distributed lag (CS‐ARDL) model estimation indicate the presence of a long‐run association between economic growth, number of filled applications for patents, development of environment‐related technologies as a percentage of all technologies, natural resources rents (NRR) as a percentage of GDP, renewable energy consumption, trade openness and environment degradation of G‐20 nations. This study re‐confirmed the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for selected nations. Further, the study's findings revealed that cleaner energy and technological innovations, mainly green technology, play a significant role in sustaining the environmental conditions of these selected countries. Moreover, the degree of natural resource depletion directly impacts environmental degradation (CO₂ emission, total greenhouse gases emission and ecological footprints) in selected nations. The study underscores the importance of promoting clean energy, green technology, and sustainable practices to balance economic growth and environmental preservation and provides policymakers in G‐20 nations with valuable policy recommendations.